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Runcam Owl Plus

Posted by Andrej on 2nd Aug 2017

I have two Owl Plus cameras and it is simply the best camera for color picture at night. Very clear colors at daytime as well, which quality can be set with built in OSD if you want less pretty but more "seeing every single detail" picture, which makes this model perfect choice for FPV.

Great cam

Posted by D.K. on 30th Jul 2017

Great cam, great customer service.

WOW Fast

Posted by Ephraim E Robbins on 18th Jan 2017

No joke I have this new camera in my hands. Three days to replace the failed one. Amazing.

Customer service can't be beat

Posted by Ephraim E Robbins on 16th Jan 2017

The first Owl Plus camera I ordered failed out of the box. After communication with Runcam about the issue they have offered to replace it. The failure issue seems isolated, I have not heard of this happening to anyone else through serching the net and reviews on this site. Anyway can't thank the team at Runcam enough.

great FPV camera

Posted by Eli on 11th Jan 2017

great FPV camera.
better use for the night flying.
but, i'm not yet touching configuration.
believe it possible to change and make it for daylight flying.
anyway i'm using for daylight flying also.
big brand, high quality,plug and play.
thanks RunCam for excellent service.

great camera for low light

Posted by Grant Robinson on 7th Jan 2017

Works great - was very jealous of a friend flying at night - had to grab one

Night FPV

Posted by Apex on 13th Dec 2016

I can only recomend this camera for night fpv.
It is not good for daylight fpv and in sunset it is totally unusable with no visibility in shaded ereas.
The swift camera outperforms the owl in daytime and sunset and even lit areas like parking lots at night.
So imho this camera has a very limited range of use.

The Best

Posted by TBRC WINGS on 24th Nov 2016

Fantastic FPV camera, no tweaking needed out of the box, just plug and play. Stunning image quality.

small camera, great picture, great extras

Posted by Jon on 22nd Nov 2016

I'll let you browse the more in-depth and technical reviews yourself, but besides being happy with the awesome camera, I was pleased as punch with all of the extras that were thrown in standard! After a concise back-and-forth with customer care, I was able to place exactly the order I wanted with the IR-pass lens instead of the IR-blocking one.
In the box when it arrived was an OSD controller (that works like a charm) with lots of settings in the menu, various adapters to attach standard RCA video cables and 5-12v power, and every kind of mounting screw, nut, bracket, and ring a person could think of attaching the camera with. Top quality service, camera, and accessories!

LA CAMARA DE LOS PROFESIONALES

Small camera with huge potential

Posted by triastro2000 on 19th Sep 2016

I purchased this camera to test it for use as a sensitive occultation astronomy video camera system.

How did it work? The RunCam OWL Plus is nearly as sensitive as the WAT910HX -- a standard for high sensitivity and linear response. The response is not linear, but it is close enough to a standard 0.45 gamma response that the camera can be used for accurate photometric measurements.

The AGC does not seem to work as a normal 'automatic' gain control. Instead, AGC has 4 possible global 'gain' settings within which the camera then has a degree of automatic gain control. For maximum sensitivity, AGC-High should be used. All other settings have less sensitivity.

Contrast setting should be left at the factory setting. Trying to increase contrast only serves to increase the brightness of the low-luminance pixels and to compress the brightness of the high-luminance pixels. There is no net improvement in sensitivity by changing the contrast.

The sensor chip is a CMOS design, interfaced with an NTSC/EIA video generator chip. The system works well, however, the CMOS design results in a rolling shutter. For the timing of astronomical events, the rolling shutter poses the additional problem of having to correct for the position of the star on the chip when applying times to measured events.

The RunCam OWL Plus comes with a very handy OSD controller. This works as well as any OSD controller that I have seen provided with any other NTSD/EIA CCD video camera. The menu is very intuitive and very complete. The large number of features available outnumber the number of features that need to be used in occultation astronomy, however the FPV fraternity will find them all very handy and easy to program.

I purchased the camera with the 'orange' case. Being an Oregon State University alum, orange and black seemed like the perfect camera color combination. Unfortunately, it was found that the orange case is very translucent to light and when applied in a nighttime application like occultation astronomy, the camera is sensitive to outside lights such as flash lights, head light glare, street lights, etc. The black case may be a better solution for occultation astronomy. In the meantime, covering the case with opaque rubber tape will have to do.

The camera was tested for linearity and found to have very good gamma 0.45 response. The camera was tested for sensitivity to small 0.2 magnitude changes in brightness. The camera was able to detect more than 2.5 magnitudes of brightness change with a very acceptable response, with corresponding response steps varying from 0.2 to 0.3 magnitudes, and very good signal-to-noise ratio even after 2.5 magnitude change in overall brightness.

The camera lens supplied is quite nice, but to couple the camera to a telescope an M12-to-CMount adapter must be purchased at a cost of around $10. This allows the camera to be attached to a CMount-1" 1/4 adapter that allows the camera to fit a standard eyepiece mounting socket.

The camera does not run too hot when powered at 12V. It will run cooler when powered at lower voltage. The voltage regulator seemed to work well and is supposed to accept a wide range of input DC voltage.

The RunCam OWL Plus is a much better camera than the RunCam OWL, particularly at low light. At low light the RunCam OWL limits the dynamic range of brightness to less than 1/2 of the full scale 256 bit available in the NTSC/EIA standard video signal. Presumably, this is part of the anti-bloom circuitry of the camera. Unfortunately, it makes everything appear nearly equal in brightness, once the saturation brightness of the camera is reached. The RunCam OWL Plus uses more dynamic range of the camera -- at least 90 percent -- before the anti-bloom circuitry kicks in. Therefore, it allows a greater range of brightness at night between the brightest and faintest objects.

The cost of the RunCam OWL Plus is reasonable. At a high cost, many other cameras would be competitive in price and features. However, at the current price point, the RunCam OWL Plus is the best camera of its type on the market.

I intend to recommend this camera to the astronomical community as a very good low-cost entry-level camera for occultation astronomy.

keeps getting better

Posted by Ray R on 30th Aug 2016

I own the older RunCam Owl also and use it a lot. The newer Owl Plus has come along way with its built in on screen setup that allows for quick and easy setting changes to the camera. It has a better image in daylight as well as low light than the previous model as well. I am very happy with the mounting options that come with the Owl Plus and it's built in voltage regulator. It really helps clean up the model and make it more than just a nighttime camera. I am disappointed that RunCam has changed to mount for their Eagle camera making difficult to swap out. All said and done the Owl Plus is a very good camera and worth the price .

Excellent

Posted by Alpha Quad (Aaron Bruggemann) on 26th Aug 2016

This camera is amazing. I use it in a 5" Quadcopter.
So let's do this logically with a list of pros and cons.
Pros:
Can be used in HS1177 frames.
The wide lense means I can see the ground when horizontal and tilt 90 degrees forward and still see the horizon.
It's amazing in low light.
It's just as amazing in daylight.
The dedicated OSD port is great feature.
No latency.
Love the bright orange colour of the camera.
Lovely picture.

Cons
Can't think of any.

I'm still playing settings, but this video shows how well this performs in daylight. (https://youtu.be/_v0gz7nzRrU)

If your on the fence about buying this camera just get it and you won't regret it.

Amazing for a night ride.

Posted by José Manuel on 21st Jul 2016

Such an amazing camera. You can use it at day time and night time. Amazing resuolution at low light conditions. The bad point is that the osd could have more options.

Finaly: true FPV dedicated Camera !

Amazing

Posted by Zory Talavera on 22nd Jun 2016

Its awesome the vision is best than I imagine great purshase

Amazing little camera

Posted by Desode on 21st Jun 2016

The Runcam owl plus delivers on taking the original owl and making it better and lets be honest, the original owl is a great camera .
In my testing, the Owl plus's speed of transitioning from color to black and white is instantaneous. When it comes to a day and night camera that is used on a racing multi-rotor, this is one of the most important things. The osd is also wonderful addition to the owl and it is simple yet gets the job done.
Please feel free to see the review on my youtube channel as I show all the features and the osd layout and more. https://youtu.be/21T9K9cmJpg